


Own Room

by rckll



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (yasha is there in minor), Angst, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rckll/pseuds/rckll
Summary: After a gruelling fight for Yasha's soul, none of the Nein want to sleep alone.If that's true, then why does Beau ask for her own room?
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	Own Room

“I'm going to go to sleep in my own room,” Beau said. It was a simple statement. One she wasn’t even sure she meant, but something in her couldn’t quite stomach being alone with Jester right now.

They’d never been a problem before, these feelings that dried out her mouth. They’d always been easy to push to one side. After all, whatever titles she gave to Jester in her mind, she was Friend first and foremost. Everything else fell away in comparison. There was a comforting familiarity to how Beau ended her days now; bidding goodnight to the rest of the Nein before heading to her room with Jester. Then talking. Talking about anything and everything and nothing. Together. Talking until Jester’s tail would give that tell-tale jerk, the one that Beau had grown to understand meant _I am tired, I can’t talk anymore_ , if that was possible where Jester was concerned _._ Then the sounds of Jester’s brushstrokes in her sketchbook and her hushed conversations to the Traveller - a peaceful background of noise that would fade out as Beau’s concentration focused on her exercises.

It had always been easy.

Maybe her confession to Nott had changed things. Had put things out in the open that she now regretted. Not that she could regret Jester. Not at all. But maybe, she thought, maybe she’d been selfish all this time. Maybe she’d been lying. _Lying_. To Jester and to herself.

But it wasn’t lying. Not really. It just wasn’t telling the truth.

Maybe they amounted to the same thing; Beau didn’t deserve to share a room with Jester. Not after all the heroic and miraculous deeds Jester had done today. Beau was constantly being blown away by the tenacity and power of that little, blue Tiefling. Jester had saved all their asses countless times. Today was no different. Beau couldn’t quite measure up.

Maybe it wasn’t that at all, maybe it was the fact that she had almost died today. Beau was tired. Her bones ached in a way she couldn’t remember them ever doing before. It had been such a long journey to get Yasha back, such a trial, and now Beau needed to rest.

Whatever it was, Beau just wanted to spend the night alone. She needed time to think. Time to process. Yasha was back for fuck’s sake. Did that change anything? _Should_ it change anything? Beau wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.

“I'm right next door to those two, just like pound on the wall if you need me.”

The others started deciding who was going where, but their words fell to silence in Beau’s ears as she saw the look on Jester’s face.

“You don’t want to…” Jester’s voice was small and frightened.

Beau’s heart seized, plummeting to rest somewhere in the pits of her stomach.

“Yasha, do you want to be my roommate?” Jester asked timidly.

Beau’s breath died in her throat. Jester’s dismay was palpable, and Beau was the cause. She had committed an unforgiveable sin. She had made the light in Jester’s eyes dim, ever so slightly. Now more than ever, Beau was frighteningly aware of how unworthy she felt. She definitely couldn’t room with Jester anymore.

“Caduceus, you’re flying solo?” Beau questioned, trying to recover some ground.

Everyone turned to look at her in confusion.

Oh.

She’d already claimed a room to herself.

Damn.

She tried to talk her way out of it, but her attempts were feeble and ultimately unsuccessful. Jester practically demanded that Beau sleep with her and Yasha, and how could Beau say no? When it came to Jester, she couldn’t possibly stay away. Not when Jester clearly wanted her there. Not when Beau herself wanted to be there so badly. She recalled the pain that had flashed across Jester’s face. She couldn’t be responsible for that ever again. She couldn’t be the reason that Jester hammered plate back over the chinks that Beau and the Nein had made in her armoured façade.

Fuck it.

“Okay, I’ll sleep with you and Yasha,” Beau conceded.

-

The three women headed down the corridor to the garden-view room that Jester had laid a claim to earlier. Beau chuckled softly at Jester’s belongings dumped unceremoniously at the foot of her bed. Caleb strode past their still open doorway, pulling his silver thread from a pocket as he did so. Seeing this, Jester grinned wickedly and darted to her haversack, rummaging around inside of it until she pulled her hand out, victorious. Clenched in her fist was a deep green ribbon which she delighted in affixing across their doorway.

“This way, anyone who comes in will trip.” Jester said with a flash of mischief in her eye.

Beau shook her head and began to unravel the wraps on her arms. Yasha cocked her head to one side.

“Should we put-- Do you have like-- Does Sprinkle have, like, a bell or something, or your thing?” Yasha asked. “Your little animal, does it have- to like dink-a-dink-a-dink?”

Jester frowned and shook her head. She reached up to finger one of the bells that adorned her curved horns. “He can have one of my bells.”

Jester unfastened the bell and tried to secure Sprinkle in her grip, but the little weasel tumbled free and scurried under the bed to hide.

“Sprinkle, Yasha wants you to have a-” Jester started to reprimand then let out a loud gasp, turning back to Yasha with a huge grin. “You didn’t want Sprinkle to have it on him!”

“Well no, in case someone- we would hear it.” Yasha said with a small apologetic smile.

Jester giggled.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said, then ran back to the door to add the bell to the ribbon.

Once done with her trick, Jester dove onto the bed with a happy sigh. Yasha bundle up a blanket on the floor to bed down. Beau stretched, cracking her neck and started for the single chair in the room.

Jester lifted her head off the bed and looked from Yasha to Beau before pushing herself up into a sitting position.

“Guys, I don’t need this whole entire bed to myself, you know?” Jester whined. “There’s plenty of room for all of us.”

Jester gave the duvet beside her a little pat and Beau, used to sharing, stood to make her way to the bed. She settled gently down as far from Jester as she could without it being blatantly obvious. Yasha turned on her side away from them, muttering an excuse of how she was much more comfortable on the floor. This was no deterrence to Jester though, who launched herself forward so that her head dangled off the bed into Yasha’s face.

“Come on, Yasha,” Jester said, the vowels drawn out in her singsong voice. “You’ll be so much safer tucked up between me and Beau. Right, Beau?”

From her position on the bed, Beau could see that Yasha seemed a little uncomfortable with the idea. Whether Yasha genuinely felt more at home on the floor or didn’t feel like she deserved a place in the bed after what she’d done, or some other reason that Beau couldn’t quite fathom, Beau opened her mouth to tell Jester to leave Yasha be. Then she caught a glimpse of Jester’s face. Now Beau could see the strained way that Jester was smiling, a thin mask she had stretched across her features. Maybe it’d be enough to fool another of the Nein, but Beau knew Jester far more than any of the others and she could see the concern and the desperation, barely hidden beneath the surface of that smile.

Beau sighed, then jerked her head forward.

“See, Beau agrees with me!” Jester declared. “I’m not hearing any arguments. Into the bed with you, Yasha!”

“Where should I go?” Yasha asked as she clambered onto the bed.

“Just right there in the middle.” Jester responded. “Then Beau can protect you on one side, and I’ll protect you on the other. Like a sandwich.”

“Tasty.” Yasha said.

Beau could barely hold back her snort.

They didn’t talk much after that. Just a few pleasantries here and there. Beau ran herself through an evening mediation while Jester wrote furiously on some loose sheets of paper. Yasha lay silently between them; her eyes struggled to stay open for long. Jester slipped the papers into the back of a book in Yasha’s pack, giggling all the while, then snuffed out the candle.

-

The once cool bed had now warmed thanks to their combined body heat. Beau was so, so tired. It had been such a gruelling day. She was past exhaustion but, though she expected to be out as soon as her head hit the pillow, sleep would not come. She felt the tenseness of Yasha beside her, in sleep the traumatised woman was ramrod straight, her arms twitched, and her breath came out in an erratic staccato. She felt the bed shift as Jester rustled on the other side of Yasha, searching for the comfiest place within the blankets. The bed creaked as Jester turned once more, snaking an arm protectively over Yasha’s side as she muttered comforts in the darkness. Jester’s unnaturally cool fingers brushed against Beau’s side.

Beau stopped breathing.

This was nothing new; Beau and Jester had slept in the same bed before. Fuck, they’d slept cuddled together before, with Jester’s hands encircling Beau’s waist, like they did Yasha’s now. Why was less than an inch of contact affecting Beau so badly, when she’d spent nights with Jester’s whole body pressed against hers without flinching?

Beau tensed the muscles in her stomach, pulling her skin away from the backs of Jester’s fingertips as she did. It made an infinitesimal difference. Beau still felt the presence of that hand, mere millimetres away, and there was no way she could sleep while she held her body so rigid. As discreetly as she could manage, Beau shifted her body further away. A noise came from Jester on the other side of Yasha that Beau wasn’t sure how to interpret. It could have been a growl, but it could have been a snore. It could have been in response to Beau moving, but it could have just been a natural expulsion of air as Jester sank closer to the peace of sleep.

Maybe she should have gone to her own room after all.

It had always been so easy before. Hadn’t it?

Beau sighed.

What was she going to do? She'd known it was a mistake to tell Nott. It had her put on edge unnecessarily, and now she didn't know how to act. Everything was so complicated. Nothing was easy at all. Maybe it never had been. The only thing Beau was sure of, was that she needed to sleep. It would do her no good to spend the time deliberating and fretting.

Beau had spent countless nights lying awake in the same room as Jester. Had spent countless hours, when her own chance at sleep had evaded her, listening to the Jester’s breath settle into the regular pattern of sleep. Even when the Nein were sleeping in Caleb’s bubble, Beau could pick her out. She knew her. So, though it was such a subtle shift, Beau knew the exact moment that Jester slipped into the world of dust and dreams.

No, it would do no good to spend the night fretting. None at all. In a fit of recklessness, hardly daring to breathe lest she wake her bedmates, Beau slipped her own hand into Jester’s and closed her eyes. Jester’s grip tightened, and though Beau knew she was still asleep, she couldn’t help but smile at the pressure.

Jester’s hand warmed within her own, or maybe it was Beau’s hand that cooled, she couldn’t quite tell. There, as she listened to the complimentary rhythms of breaths and heartbeats, and with her hand entwined with her best friend’s, Beau succumbed to the black, dreamless sleep of pure exhaustion.

**Author's Note:**

> If I didn't post this today, I would have kept opening the doc, staring at the words with criticism, and then never posting.  
> It's by no means perfect, but that's what practice is for right?  
> Hope you enjoyed. :)  
> Follow me on [tumblr!](https://rckll-bllys.tumblr.com/)


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